Calling it “feminist propaganda,” Men’s Rights Activists boycotted the latest Mad Max installment in advance of its film release, citing Furiosa’s apparent “replacement” of Max in his own franchise as enough justification to use the word propaganda as a descriptor for a summer blockbuster. According to early reviews, Fury Road is a near-perfect film, celebrated for its special effects, stunts, and performances (not only from Charlize Theron, but from Tom Hardy as well). So why is the MRAs’ reaction to Fury Road so strong – and negative?

“When recycled nineteenth-century rhetoric about Indians overshadows such complex histories, the cultural items themselves become free-floating stand-ins for actual Native people, a process that in some ways masks colonial guilt about these tough issues. To accept outdated language is historical laziness that does broad damage. It’s a cavalier attitude, one that helps explain prevalent cultural appropriations like hipster headdresses, Hollywood Indians, and the dogged support for racist professional sports mascots.” How We Still Look At and Talk About Indians and Their Art

“The Identity Project,” from photographer Sarah Deragon, challenges the way that we compartmentalize and think about queerness and identity.

The photo series captures the way subjects want to present themselves to the world around them and communicate their personal ways of self-identifying. Mainstream understandings of what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) tend to be narrow and specific, but with “The Identity Project,” we can see the infinite shades and hues of queerness that make up the spectrum of human identity.

This and every Wednesday for the next little while I will be expanding on many of the 27 points covered in my earlier post about making the poetry manuscript. If you’ve not read that original post, it’s called “On Making The Poetry Manuscript” (October 12, 2011) and is available here.

But first . . . many poets have asked me recently about the Tupelo Press Writing Conferences: what sets them apart from other manuscript workshops and writing retreats? What can I expect to come away with?

It’s important to me (and might be to you) to distinguish what Tupelo Press Writing Conferences are about, because great writing is at the heart of any successful publishing career, and because (as you’ll see further on) if you’re to make your manuscript a more successful swimmer in a sea of manuscripts, there are things you need to know.